


Going Shuura-shaped

by BensLostTookaCat (CJWritesAgain)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Past non-consensual drug use, Rose tells Finn a story, Stormflower - Freeform, Uncomfortable Truths, Vomiting, background Finn & Nines & Zeros & Slip, background OCs - Freeform, finnrose - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 07:10:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20926187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CJWritesAgain/pseuds/BensLostTookaCat
Summary: Navigating the waters of friendship is tricky when you're an ex-stormtrooper. Luckily, Finn has Rose to teach him an important lesson: not all of your friends will be friends with each other -- or even like one another -- and that's ok.





	Going Shuura-shaped

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenOfCarrotFlowers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/gifts), [sunbug1138](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunbug1138/gifts), [Zabeta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zabeta/gifts), [flypaper_brain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flypaper_brain/gifts), [LoveThemFiercely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveThemFiercely/gifts), [persimonne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/persimonne/gifts).

> Star Wars calls them shuura fruit, but let's be real, they're pears. 
> 
> T rating is for the past non-con drug use, nothing more. 
> 
> Many thanks to my dear Flypaper_Brain, who betaed this for me.

It was nearly zero hundred hours when Rose was finally able to chuck her spanner into the toolbox that she and Brax were sharing on their side of the hangar bay and head to the canteen—not that you could tell the difference between 1800, 2200, and 0700 on Hoth; it was all  _ dark, _ even outside of the base. She had been on evening midshift for all of three days, and it was her professional opinion that it sucked wampa balls.  


It was necessary to have all hands on deck for the Resistance, of course, and anyone who could work a torque wrench was required around the clock to repair the damage that constant exposure to such brutal cold wreaked on scout ships, as well as make improvements to the Resistance’s fighters and bombers—they had to do more with fewer ships in order to stand a chance against the First Order.  


However, working the swing between 2nd and 3rd meant that she slept through breakfast and lunch, generally waking up in time to catch the end of dinner before hurrying to work. She missed her friends, the family she and Paige had made for themselves in the Resistance. She missed Finn. He was working odd hours too, splitting his time between early morning and early evening in order to help General Organa handle the First Order defectors swelling their ranks by the week, as well as counterintelligence.  


Given his schedule, it stopped Rose dead in her tracks when she got down to the canteen and found Finn sitting alone at a table, staring down at the steam curling from a mug of what might have been weak caf, but was more likely tea.  


“Finn?”

He looked at her without really seeing her at first, then nodded glumly.  


“Hey Rose.”

“What’s the matter?”

He shook his head.  


“Hard to explain.”

“Well, at least we have the place to ourselves. I’m starving. You want anything?”

He shook his head again.  


“Okay. Wait for me, I’ll be right back.”

Looking over the options in the kitchen, she sighed; replicated food always tasted off to her, but it was quick and she could at least get some hot vegetable and nerf soup and get back to Finn that way.  


“So,” she began again, sitting beside him and his now-cold cup of tea, “what’s troubling you, Finn?”

“Do I like the wrong people?”

She reared back, blinking, at the awkward question. In the galaxy of things she had considered he might say, this was deep into Wild Space.  


“What do you mean, ‘the wrong people?’ Do you think General Organa would let  _ the wrong kind of people _ into the Resistance?”

Rose paused, taking a sip of her soup and considering how his current work within the Resistance might be influencing the question. Was he being pressured to approve defectors who might be double agents?

“…she let me in,” Finn grumbled. “And you saw how that went when we met.”

Rose was silently thankful that she’d swallowed her sip before he’d said that, otherwise he might have had a faceful of hot soup.  


“We didn’t get off to the best start, it’s true, but we’re… I mean…”

Exasperated and at a loss for what kind of response he needed, she set down her mug and crossed her arms, her head tilted in thought.  


“What’s this really about, Finn?”

He looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes flickering as he figured out how to explain himself.  


“When I was with the First Order… I’ve told you some of how they treated us, I know, but… making friends —  _ caring _ about anyone else — was against regulations. We were pieces on a holochess board, we were supposed to know our roles and work together for the glory of the First Order. To them… ‘friendship’ meant ‘divided loyalties.’”

Rose’s eyebrows were pulled low, her mouth turned down.  


“You’re human beings… you can’t survive without community! It’s a basic human instinct!” Rose protested.  


Finn gave a slight, bitter smile.  


“Our survival was optional.” With a sigh at Rose’s look of outraged horror, he continued. “You’re right, though… I think most of us made friends, or at least comrades, in spite of the rules. It was a fine line to walk, though. I know I’ve mentioned Nines and Zeros and Slip to you before.”

“Yeah, but squadmates are different—” Rose began.  


“In the First Order, that’s all we got, Rose. I didn’t get to pick who I was teamed up with. I didn’t get to choose the ones I wanted to be close to, and most people didn’t get too close for fear of reconditioning if we got noticed.”

Rose shuddered, and reached for her soup again; Finn had spared her most of the more vivid details, but she did know that nearly a quarter of ‘troopers sent for reconditioning never returned. Her free hand lighted on Finn’s, and the grin he gave her in return could have powered the base. He turned his hand over, and began stroking her knuckles with his thumb.  


“I don’t know a whole lot about how to make friends or to be a friend. Most of what I know… it started with Rey, and now… I’ve learned a lot from you.”

Rose gazed at their hands, smiling gently. Then she looked back up at him, and her left nostril raised in growing confusion as she pondered what he’d said.  


“So what’s the problem?”  


“FN-4521 and TX-6319 — they haven’t chosen their names yet,” he cut off Rose’s protest with a duck of his head. “They’re good guys… a couple. I ran into them once or twice when I was on patrol and they were AWOL and in violation of about 14 different codes of conduct. Anyway, they care about each other a lot and they want to defeat the First Order just like the rest of us, but…”

Finn trailed off, embarrassment and frustration mingling on his face. Rose, taking his long pause as a sign that she needed to respond, nodded encouragingly.  


“But?”

“They don’t like Poe.” Finn hung his head miserably.  


Rose blinked rapidly.  


“…So?”

It was Finn’s turn to tilt his head, and look at Rose with absolute befuddlement.  


“But  _ I _ like Poe!”

“...Yes?”

Agitation raised both the pitch and the volume of Finn's voice.  


“Poe's a good guy!”

Rose's tongue ran along the top row of her teeth as she considered whether this was a matter of education or personality.  


It was, she decided, a bit of both.  


“Finn, do you like shuura fruit?”

He shook his head.  


“I’m not really hungry, Rose—”

“No,” she cut him off, “just… generally. Do you like shuura fruit?”

Confusion scrunched his handsome face.  


“I do… you know it’s my favorite… but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“Have you ever seen me eat one?”

“No, I know you don’t care for them, so I’ve never offered.”

“But you’re okay with the fact that I don’t like them.”

Finn shrugged.  


“It’s just fruit. With the ‘troopers, though, some of the things I heard them saying about Poe… that he’s an arrogant jerk, that he avoids ex-troopers like they’re the enemy still, that he’s told some of them that they have to prove themselves to stay here…”

She closed her eyes, looking almost annoyed, and Finn edged away warily.  


“Let’s stick with the fruit for right now. I’ll come back around to the ‘troopers. Can we do that?”

A short huff. “Yeah, though I’m not sure how the two are even comparable.”

“Well, let me tell you: I can barely  _ smell  _ shuura fruit without feeling sick, Finn. Once, when I was a lot younger, I got mad about something, and I ran away from home. It was probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done, but I was young, barely thirteen, and… I wound up near one of the cantinas that the miners favored. It was a rough and nasty place, someplace a girl like me had no business being.”

Finn swallowed hard, practically squirming as her story went on.  


“Someone bought me a glass of fizzyglug, and it was flavored with shuura syrup. Hays Minor was a poor mining planet. We never had things like shuura fruit there, and it was probably the sweetest thing I’d ever tasted as a kid. It was so good, and when the glass ran out, the bartender brought me another one, said it was from one of the miners.” Rose was staring off to the side of Finn’s head, and she took a slow breath, as if trying to steady herself. Then, she plunged ahead. 

“After the second glass, I felt  _ good. _ Whatever I was mad about, I couldn’t remember, and it was so nice to be so happy… then the miner who’d bought me the drinks came over and started talking to me, and he said we should go outside to get some air. I was probably a little unsteady on my feet, and he wrapped his arm around me. Before we could get there, though, Balam Mosha, a mining buddy of my dad’s, recognized me. He came over and got in the face of the man who had bought me those drinks, and I remember it looking like they were going to fight, but then… I don’t remember what happened. I don’t remember anything except puking for what felt like days, just vomiting shuura fruit syrup. Paige told me later that I’d been in and out of consciousness for three days, and Balam had come to check on me every day. On the first day, he brought a doctor over who tested my blood, and found that the fizzyglug had knockout drugs in it.”

She was absently rubbing her left arm and training her gaze to the side until Finn pulled her into one of his normally-toe-curling hugs.  


“I’m sorry, Rose. I didn’t know,” he said meekly, then he kissed her forehead.  


“I know,” she replied quietly, leaning into him for a moment before pulling back to face him. “The point I’m making, though, is this: I’m allowed to really dislike something that you really like. I have my reasons for disliking shuura fruit, but it doesn’t mean that the stuff is inherently  _ bad. _ It doesn’t make either of us bad people that we don’t love all of the same things. Can you agree?”

Finn nodded, then leaned his forehead against hers, and Rose went on in a gentle tone.  


“The same is true of everyone else. Even though you don’t like what they said about Poe, I’m sure you can agree that he  _ can _ come off really cocky at times. Knowing what I’ve heard from the two of you about his time on the First Order’s ships, I can see why he might avoid ex-troopers, even though he doesn’t see  _ you _ in the same way. These other guys, they don’t know that, though. They look at him, or hear his voice, and they think of the person who’s probably killed hundreds of their fellow troopers, some of whom were probably their friends. This is war, though, and those are the costs of it. Do you see?”

It was clear from Finn’s pursed lips that he wanted to disagree, and he made a little noise in his throat, but said nothing.  


“You don’t have to love Poe any less just because someone else doesn’t love him — and you don’t have the right to demand that anyone else feel about him the same way you do. People are people, Finn, and our friends don’t always like all of our other friends. That doesn’t make us bad at picking friends, or bad at being friends. It makes us people who can see the best in a lot of different kinds of people, and that’s something I don’t think you ought to feel sorry for.”

The momentary peace Finn felt in her answer was spoiled by the face that Rose made when she picked up her mug and took another sip.  


“Ugh! Cold nerf!”

He grimaced.  


“Want me to make you something?”

“Nah, my break is about over anyway.”

Finn stood and crossed his arms.  


“Uh-uh. You’re not about to go back to work in that deep freeze with  _ two sips _ of soup in you.” He looked toward the kitchens. “You wait right here.”

Rose smiled to herself as he disappeared. He might have a lot to learn about how to keep friends, but it was only because he cared so deeply. When he returned with a canvas bag nearly bursting with enough food for a battalion, she laughed.  


“I’m not  _ that _ hungry, Finn!”

He turned an adorable shade of pink, and muttered something about having choices. Rose shook her head.  


“How about you walk me back to work, and then you go get some sleep?”

“Will you be off soon?” he asked, somehow looking both bashful and pitiful at the same time.  


“Yes, I’ll be off at 0300.”

“Come over when you’re off?”

It was Rose’s turn to blush, grinning at his enthusiasm.  


“I think I can do that, yeah.”


End file.
